Although, let’s be real: Ksenia and I don’t plan on actually growing up in our writerly lives. It’s more like staying daydreaming children forever, but then pretending to be grown-up long enough to do the business stuff.
I don’t remember how I discovered Ksenia. But I do remember what stuck in my mind about her:
- She said, “Reader, you are my publisher. Share my books.”
- She gave away her books for free, as in all of her older drafts of her story were publicly available to read (maybe still are) and you can even still download her stories for free.
Why did that grab my attention? She saw the value of her readers. That readers are what make or break a story. That’s what I want my philosophy to stay forever.
And she has a mindset of abundance, not scarcity. Those are artistic buzzwords right now, but they ring true. Artists can tend to want to hoard their ideas, their best work for themselves, as if there’s a finite capacity. But we need a mindset of abundance, that we can throw it all out there and celebrate others successes too, because creativity is infinite.
Why else do I want to be like Ksenia Anske “when I grow up”?
- Curly haired people goals!
- Quirky personality
- You are getting to know the person through every online engagement.
- She is authentic – what she’s learning, what she’s done wrong, it’s all out there. You’re following the journey, the person, not just book sales promos.
- She’s always learning and sharing what she learns. I’m sure paying attention.
- She’s not afraid to work out of the box, experiment.
- It all comes back to her READERS! They support her because she supports them. She listens to their feedback and engages with them.
- Need proof? Anyone who read her last email newsletter, she requested their address and she sent them a card with a personalized short story.
- Note the above bullet point also goes back to the concept of abundance rather than scarcity. She didn’t freak that she wouldn’t have enough stories in her for each person or that she wouldn’t be able to send cards to her readers because of the expense. She just said she’d do it, then she did it.
- okay, I’m losing track of what these bullet points are for and when to use bullet points and when to not….
- Switch gears!
I’ve read two books of hers:
- Rosehead. Magical realism at its finest. If you want a quirky read about a girl and her talking dog and a carnivorous garden, this is it! Everyone’s been looking for a book about a carnivorous garden, right? 🙂
- Blue Sparrow. A collection of tweets on writing, reading, and the creative life. Motivational, inspirational, even instructional (mostly “KEEP WRITING!”). My favorite detail would be that it’s 140 pages long, with 140 tweets. Like an inside joke for us Twitter users 🙂 And to whet your appetite, check out a couple of the tweets:
So now you know what I’m working towards. Quirky writing. Lovable hair. Personable interaction. Perspective of abundance. And reader centered. Check out Ksenia’s work for yourself….you won’t regret it!